Gav Emma and Joshi: big trip #2: 2014

Hello everyone

This blog is looking back to October and November last year, which already seems ages ago as time is really flying for us as 2014 gets going. I am trying to catch up as we plan to turn this blog into a book for Joshi to read when he is older about his early years in Africa.

October this year was hot and hotter, and it didn’t actually start to rain until early December, much later than last year, so we all got used to sleeping in the high twenties again for a couple of months. After I got back from Tanzania at the end of September, we decided that we were going to take Joshi up Mulanje to try to cool down as the plateau is wonderfully cool at night all year around. We chose the Minunu path, as friends here said it was a very child friendly hut with beautiful pools, and they were so right.

Joshi was carried up by a porter for most of the very steep hike up through some of the last remaining rainforest on Mulanje, surrounded by birds and butterflies with optional swimming in waterfalls en route. At the top we were wowed by spectacular views and the beautiful cosy hut where we found some friends already staying with their children.

setting off for Minun

Looking down on Lujeri Hydro station

Waterfall lunchtime swim

Ready to go again after cooling off

on the plateau

well earned dip with spectacular views

view from the hut

storytime Mulanje style

Joshi announced the water was too cold for him, but that didn’t stop us swimming in the crystal clear water, and views to die for. As always we wished we had brought more provisions to stay more than one night, as the plateau is so enticing, but we had run out of food so went back down, this time through the cloud forest which was beautiful but very strange, and we finished off the hike with a pizza at Mulanje Pepper, yum yum, running into more friends there who we joined for lunch.

Walking past water pipes for the hydro station

The opposite of cooling down in the hot season is to venture down into the Shire river valley, where temperatures can reach 50 degrees, but we did this to visit another of our favourite places for the last time, Nyala park. There are no cats, so we got out of the car to cool down in the picnic area, and spent most of the day watching the graceful giraffes going about their business.

Digging in Nyala park

Gav then headed off to Uganda for his stint teaching on the East African Diploma of Tropical Medicine, on the kidney week, and he had a great time living it up in Kampala with the students. Joshi and I hung out in Blantyre with all his friends, mostly in water to try to keep cool.

Jacaranda in our garden

Joshi and Pemphero play with flowers

Making pizza

Oeuf au Gav for Malawian mother's day

Joshi and Lola

which way is the pool?

feeding the chickens with Noah, Marvellous, Pemphero and Reuben

As we moved into November, my study got ready to wrap up and we whizzed around making sure everything was done properly before the team left. After so much planning and organising and running it is very strange that we have all the data and the team have now all moved onto new jobs. I made it back to London for a flying visit for a few days to go to a meningitis conference, and managed to catch up with Helena and Nick and their wedding plans, plus spend some time with Mum and Dad who are trying to come to terms with Dad being ill for 2 years now. Because of the time pressure from my study I couldn’t stay as long as I would have liked with them.

In November Gav had a lovely nurse come over from the Royal Free Hospital in London as part of his funding about kidney injury to teach and train nurses here about fluid balance. She slotted into life so quickly, coming to the annual St Andrew’s day ball, Thanksgiving with Laura at Lujeri tea plantations and her first safari at Majete. As for the last few years Gav and I have cleaned up at the raffle at the St Andrew’s ball in Blantyre, we donned our frocks and ‘enjoyed’ the haggis with friends, and managed not to win a single prize and ran out of cash, so bailed on our friends who stayed on (including Sarah who ‘won’ a year’s supply of Carlsberg that turned out to actually be only 12 crates) to go to Jen’s party and danced the rest of the night away.

Thanksgiving lunch at Lujeri

Mulanje from the Lujeri side

Over these months Joshi has managed to cope beautifully with the heat, loving his nursery and his friends and generally thriving, happily announcing to anyone ‘I’m 2 and a half now’ and for the first time started to be a really big boy and we left the nappies behind – cause for celebration indeed.